for your own good
by shady stays gold
Summary: When Johanna Mason is told by Snow that she must prostitute herself, she can't accept it. She refuses, Snow threatens her by killing her family one member at a time. One night, Johanna decides if she's got nothing, Snow can't threaten her with anything. But the knife still shakes in her hand. *violence* *For the C/P monthly oneshot challenge*


**This is for the Caesar's Palace monthly oneshot challenge! Well, I'm very excited about this fic, because I've had a great idea for it ever since Estoma gave the prompt. The prompt for this oneshot is:**

**"When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose."**

**Thanks, I hope you like reading! :)**

* * *

"when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose."

* * *

She must've done something wrong. Maybe she didn't smile enough during her Victory Tour? Maybe she forgot to thank that sponsor that sent in a blanket for her during her last cold, hellish night in the arena of caves- no, she already thanked them. The girl racked her brains for something, anything, that she could've messed up on so terribly that she was being called to the President's office. She found absolutely nothing, which did nothing more than make her even more uneasy.

She smoothed down her slightly wrinkled red plaid skirt, in one last desperate attempt to make herself look more presentable, like a respectable victor. She didn't have a mirror, but there was one window, looking out on the streets of the Capitol. Faintly, Johanna could see her reflection. A strand of her layered, short dark brown hair was creeping in front of her eyes. She pushed it back and tried to smile at her reflection to make herself feel better. Needless to say, it didn't work.

Johanna Mason walked down the white-painted, black-carpeted hallway, fidgeting with her fingers. She didn't know why she was here, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

A hesitant hand reached out, and it was trembling so much Johanna almost denied it was hers. _Keep your cool, Johanna, _she chided herself. _Come on! It's just a talk with the President. Who forces twenty-four children in Panem to fight to the death every year... _She couldn't deny she was fearful of the President, but she could try not to let her internal panic show on her visage.

Johanna knocked on the door, trying to keep her face devoid of any emotion at all.

"Come in," said a flat voice. Johanna swallowed. Her deep brown eyes darted around like a caged animal. They landed on a bouquet of roses in a vase on Snow's desk. She entered President Snow's office and tries to smile at the President. He nodded to her, and said, "You may sit here." Johanna's eyes traveled to a padded red velvet chair. She suddenly felt very informal, and tried to improve her slouching posture as she walked to the chair. Johanna hated the Capitol, but she didn't feel like being shot this instant for voicing her defiant opinion.

"Why am I here?" she asked right away. Her fingers tapped on her legs nervously. She hoped it wasn't for some stupid thing she did drunk at District Twelve during her victory tour.

Snow smiled at her- at least he tried to. He looked more like a predator sizing up its next meal. A tiger hidden by tall grass, watching an innocent antelope and licking its toothy mouth. Or maybe a snake- Johanna thought that suited Snow well. A snake, curled up, ready to strike on a twitching mouse. She was the mouse, the antelope, the prey. Johanna snapped out of it when Snow cleared his throat.

"Johanna, I'm sure you know of a victor's other duty than mentoring," Snow said. Johanna didn't. She wasn't what you'd call innocent at all- she'd killed so many people in the Games all traces of innocence were swept from her mind like a tidal wave washing away beach-side houses. But she had no clue what Snow was trying to tell her.

"No, I don't," she said cautiously.

"Well, I will do a very descriptive explanation," said Snow, curling his perfectly manicured fingers together. "You must repay their kind treatment of you during your stay in sex."

Johanna's large eyes widened to the size of saucers. She nearly asked Snow to repeat himself. But she knew, she heard him right. "I- what the... I mean, I just..." she stuttered, not knowing what to say at all.

"You're a virgin?" asked Snow. Johanna turned redder than during fifth grade in Seven when her History teacher gave her class the sex talk. It felt so terribly, awfully wrong to hear the President of Panem talk about these things.

"Um, no," said Johanna, biting her lip.

"Well, what's the matter?" asked Snow almost mockingly. As if there was absolutely nothing wrong with a seventeen-year-old girl prostituting herself because the President of her nation wanted her to. And the Capitolites didn't even treat her 'kindly' at the Capitol! They laughed at her weak-little-girl act and bet on how much time she would live after the gong went off. Not in days, not in how many tributes left- in _seconds._

And that hurt so much to Johanna, a year ago in the Games. It hurt in that place deep in your heart that needs people to recognize them, respect them, acknowledge them. Even though she wasn't exposing her real personality, or skills, it hurt her pride.

When someone or something, or a group of people like the Capitolites does that, Johanna doesn't forget. And grudges like that always have made her act rashly.

"What isn't the matter?" Johanna said a bit louder than she should have. "What's not? Starving your citizens? Killing them? Making teenagers whore themselves just for some twisted, perverted pleasure that you might get?

"Miss Mason!" Snow's voice bellowed. The words echoed. _Miss Mason... Mason... Mason... _"That was entirely unacceptable." Johanna got up and squared her shoulders.

"I'm done pretending!" she said. "I'm sick of it, and I'm not going to be a whore!" She was breathing hard, not knowing what Snow would do to her in punishment of her words.

"We shall see, Miss Mason," says President Snow. "After all, you have a mother and a father. And a dog, if I'm not mistaken."

The girl know what Snow meant- that he could and would easily kill her family to force her to do his bidding.

Johanna's eyes got so wide you could see the tears forming and threatening to spill over.

* * *

"... and may he rest in peace," said District Seven's undertaker, a stocky man called Mr. Jenkins. He closed the worn Bible he used at every funeral.

Johanna was too busy crying to tell him that her family didn't have a religion.

Just two days before, her father was alive and well. He hugged Johanna on his way to work and ruffled her short hair. "See you tonight, my little wood elf." He always called Johanna his little wood elf because of the time she spent in the woods, and because of her elfian features. Johanna had giggled- a sound she never though would come out of her since she was delivered out of the arena.

When she was eating lunch in her polished, shiny clean kitchen in Victor's Village, one of her father's fellow workers rushed into her house and broke the news- a tree had coincidentally fallen right on her father and he was dead before he hit the ground.

Johanna was smart enough to know that it was because of her- because of what she said to Snow that day- that her father was now resting, skin cold, hands folded, ribs crushed to smithereens, in a coffin eternally.

She was holding a white rose to put on her father's grave, but then she remembered the vase of roses in Snow's office that terrible day, and ripped off the flower petals, until all that was left was thorns. Like her. All of her innocence was stripped away from her faster than her first Capitol client stripped off her clothes. All that was left was thorns.

* * *

Johanna got up at three AM, the next morning.

She turned on no lights. She wasn't having a nightmare. There was no storm that she was scared of. She learned to tough out storms and nightmares in the arena a year and a half ago.

No, she got up for an entirely different reason- she needed to dispose of the rest of her family.

Her stomach lurched as she walked quickly to the kitchen. She rummaged through the silverware until she found a knife. It was no sharp, blazing, polished ax, but it'd have to do. For what she was doing, she needed a weapon.

She heard a noise at the glass door and was so startled and plainly scared shitless she dropped the knife on the floor abruptly. It was pitch black dark. She couldn't see who was at her door. She just knew that she didn't want anyone witnessing her homicide. To her horror, standing outside the door were two Peacekeepers. A third one emerged seemingly out of nowhere. Johanna simultaneously heard a noise from _inside _her house as the Peacekeeper appeared. Her eyebrows raised as she saw the Peacekeepers weren't looking inside.

Johanna hit the floor carefully and her hands scurried around for the knife she dropped. She found it the hard way- the tip dug itself into her right palm. She yelped in surprise as blood oozed from the wound. Quickly, she ducked under the kitchen table, in case the Peacekeepers heard her. They hadn't.

She let out a sigh of relief. Then she let out a scream.

In front of her, in her hallway, facing _her, _was the Head Peacekeeper.

Johanna's knife was hidden, thank goodness. But she was hiding under a table at 3 in the morning. That alone is a little bit more than just suspicious.

But the Peacekeeper just smirked at her. Johanna's mouth opened in horror as he nodded at her, his face in a sneer, as he pointed down the hallway- toward her mother's room.

Johanna pressed her hands- bleeding one and all- over her mouth in pure terror as the Head Peacekeeper joined his comrades outside her door.

Her hands started trembling. The house just felt too quiet. Far too silent to be a good thing. Usually her mother snored so loudly Johanna slept with her door closed.

Johanna crept down the dark hall, scared out of her wits. She wasn't scared of the dark, no way, but the Peacekeeper pointing down the hall gave her something to be scared of. Johanna knew what he meant. Johanna had waited too long. She was too late- not to save her mother, but to murder her herself.

Johanna flipped on the light in her mother's room. She let out a shriek when she saw her mother's corpse, laying in her bed with a bright red slit across her throat.

Johanna ran down the light-flooded hall with her knife, ready to run to town and yell "Murder, murder!"

But she couldn't- she had another living thing on her hit list. Her beloved dog, Macie.

See, Johanna wasn't just having random homicidal tendencies. She was doing this for a purpose, and a very good reason. If she killed her own family, Snow wouldn't be able to threaten her with their deaths. If Snow killed them, she would never get her revenge. He would never again say "If you don't sleep with Capitolians, then I'll kill your family." Johanna needed to kill them. She had to. She didn't want Snow to get to them first.

The knife just kept shaking in her hand. She just kept thinking of her mother's grotesque smile. Of how her father looked when they opened his coffin.

There was a barking sound, and Johanna's basset hound, Macie, ran into the room. Evidently Macie had been sleeping in her bed in Mrs. Mason's room and was as scared as Johanna herself.

Johanna reached out a quivering hand to pet Macie's head, like she'd always loved. Macie's tongue curled upward as her keen senses picked up the smell of blood, and the dog licked Johanna's bleeding hand. Johanna winced as the rough tongue opened her wound even more.

Terrified, Johanna clung onto the dog like she used to do when she was little and scared of everything. Then she realized something-

Her father was dead. Her mother was dead- and Johanna didn't kill her. So no one left to kill... but her dear little hound, Macie.

Johanna's hands were shaking so hard the knife sliced open her other hand across the top. She gritted her teeth. The hand with the knife slowly crept in front of Macie's furry throat. Macie whimpered and tried to struggle away.

Johanna's eyes were filling with tears. She knew that she had to kill Macie. She just couldn't accept it. She didn't want to kill any more innocent things.

But it would be better than Snow killing her dog. It would be better than Peacekeepers creeping into her house at the dead of night and slitting her mother's throat. It would be better than the 'accident' with her father and the tree.

Johanna hugged Macie close to her. "I'm sorry," she whispered, like she had to be quiet. But she didn't. Everyone but her and Macie in this house was dead- except if there was Peacekeepers lurking around to see what Johanna is doing. "I'M SORRY!" Johanna screamed into the darkness of her kitchen. Tears trickled out of her eyes. "But it's for my own good." She breathed in deeply. _"Our _own good," she corrected herself.

She petted the top of Macie's head one last time. For a split second, Macie eased in her arms. Comforted by Johanna's friendly gesture.

Then Johanna tugged the knife through her neck.

She closed her eyes, but nothing could block out the terrible sounds Macie was making. Nothing could block out the blood that sprayed across her body. Nothing could block the guilt she was feeling at the moment.

Johanna stood up and stumbled out of her house, barely aware she was holding the bloodstained knife still. She walked into town, tears streaming down her numb face.

When the Peacekeepers walked into her house, they saw the gory scene in the kitchen. They looked at Johanna with raised eyebrows.

"I'm sorry," she said, blood and tears staining her face. "But it was for my own good."


End file.
